Roque Dalton

Roque Antonio Dalton García (14 May 1935 – 10 May 1975), known professionally as Roque Dalton, was a Salvadoran poet, essayist, journalist, political activist, and intellectual. He is considered one of Latin America's most compelling poets and one of the greatest Salvadoran writers of the 20th century.

The son of an American émigré and a Salvadoran nurse, he attended the University of Chile and the University of El Salvador, where he studied law. While at the latter, he began writing poetry, founded the University Literary Circle with Guatemalan poet Otto René Castillo, and associated with other members of the Committed Generation. A Marxist-Leninist, he joined the Communist Party of El Salvador in 1957 and visited the Soviet Union in the same year. He was subsequently arrested for inciting revolt during the presidency of José María Lemus.

After his imprisonment, Dalton lived in exile in Cuba, where he developed his career as a writer and most of his poetry was published. He later served as a correspondent for The International Review: Problems of Peace and Socialism based out of Prague, and in 1969 won the Casa de las Américas Poetry Prize for his book Taberna y Otros Lugares.

In the final years of his life Dalton returned to El Salvador and became involved in the armed struggle against the government, joining the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP) in 1973. For his criticisms of ERP leadership, he was executed by his peers in 1975. Posthumously, he has been recognized as Hijo Meritísimo and Poeta Meritísimo by the Salvadoran government and received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of El Salvador in 2012.